As you prepare to become a mother, you face an experience unlike any
other in your life. Having a baby will redirect your preferences and
pleasures and, most likely, will realign some of your values.
As you undergo this unique psychological transformation, you will be
guided by new hopes, fears, and priorities. In a most startling way,
having a child will influence all of your closest relationships and
redefine your role in your family's history. The charting of this is
remarkable, new realm is the subject of this compelling book.
Renowned psychiatrist Daniel N. Stern has joined forces with
pediatrician and child psychiatrist Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern and
journalist Allison Freeland to paint a wonderfully evocative picture of
the psychology of motherhood. At the heart of "The Birth of a Mother" is
an arresting premise: Just as a baby develops physically in utero and
after birth, so a mother is born psychologically in the many months that
precede and follow the birth of her baby.
The recognition of this inner transformation emerges from hundreds of
interveiws with new mothers and decades of clinical experience. Filled
with revealing case studies and personal comments from women who have
shared this experience, this book will serve as an invaluable sourcebook
for new mothers, validating the often confusing emotions that accompany
the development of this new identity. In addition to providing insight
into the unique state of motherhood, the authors touch on related topics
such as going back to work, fatherhood, adoption, and premature birth.
During pregnancy, mothers-to-be talk about morning sickness and their
changing bodies, and new mothers talk about their exhaustion,
thebenefits of nursing or bottle-feeding, and the dilemma of whether or
when they should return to work. And yet, they can be strangely mute
about the dramatic and often overwhelming changes going on in their
inner lives. Finally, with "The Birth of a Mother, " these powerful
feelings are eloquently put into place.
